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Community Service Projects: School of the Week

2009-09-25T13:55:00.001-04:00

University of Cincinnati - Zoo-Mates

Zoo-Mates took shape in 2006 as a collaboration between the Center for Community Engagement at the University of Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Zoo, and Project Connect, an agency that serves children experiencing homelessness in Cincinnati Public Schools. Now in its fourth year, Zoo-Mates pairs 30 UC students with 30 children experiencing homelessness for yearlong mentoring relationships.

The mentors, University of Cincinnati students of every major and class level, commit to the Zoo-Mates program for a full academic year. They are paired one-on-one with a child to mentor throughout the year, with the possibility of continuing this relationship into the future. At the beginning of the program year, Zoo-Mates volunteers participate in trainings on the best practices of mentoring and the impact of poverty and homelessness on the lives of children.

This year, the Zoo-Mates children all attend the same Cincinnati Public School and range in age from kindergarten to eighth grade. Many of the children are siblings. While children experiencing homelessness may not sleep on the streets, some live in shelters, temporary housing, or with relatives or family friends, and they all lack permanent, stable homes. Project Connect commits to assisting the families throughout the school year, specifically focusing on keeping the children enrolled in one school throughout a family’s many transitions.

Zoo-Mates mentors and mentees meet once a week, both at the Cincinnati Zoo and at the children’s school or elsewhere in the community. At the Zoo, the Zoo-Mates pairs meet ambassador animals, tour the facilities behind the scenes, and explore together. We even spent the night during an exciting Nocturnal Adventure! During Zoo-Mates outings at the children’s school, we play games, craft art project, and learn about science through fun experiments. Our outings are full of smiles, stories, and energy!

Visit truehero.org for a complete description, photos and video from this interesting community service project.

Community Service Project Video of the Month

2009-08-20T22:02:00.007-04:00

Indiana University - Books & Beyond Project Video

Books & Beyond is a collaborative student service project of Indiana University's Global Village Living-Learning Center, the Newark Collegiate Academy, and the Kabwende Primary School in Rwanda. Books & Beyond is an innovative, newly established project which promotes intercultural communication, literacy skills, advancement of education and service learning by engaging students in authoring, illustrating, publishing and marketing childen's books and/or a collection of short stories. Working in pairs, IU’s Global Village students mentor Newark Collegiate Academy high school students and together the partners develop children’s books and short stories to be sent to Rwanda. These books, along with teacher training guides and professional development workshops being developed for Kabwende Primary, will serve as models for the Rwandan students to create their own books. The Rwandan students’ books will be sent back to the United States, compiled in an anthology with the existing stories from New Jersey and Indiana, and will be sold with the profit from the books returned to Kabwende in Rwanda. Along the way, students are acquiring skills in authoring books, mentoring and collaborating, intercultural communication, grant writing, documenting and fundraising.

The project is beautifully explained in a video on YouTube ...Check it out!

You can also view the video and the complete community service project description at truehero.org.

If you have any interesting ideas for videos of community service projects, please comment below.

Community Service Projects: School of the Week

2009-08-08T21:40:00.005-04:00

William Jewell College - Student volunteers had an interesting community service idea: save energy by installing fluorescent light bulbs in a Residence Inn/Marriott Hotel in Kansas City. They installed over 600 light bulbs in all 106 guest rooms, resulting in a 73% carbon emissions reduction and $1,200 of monthly savings, as well as environmental education for over 2,600 guests in the first month alone. They demonstrated to the guests how a community service opportunity could lead to cash and energy savings for many in their community.

Visit truehero.org for more details, photos and a video from this and other high impact community service projects.

Community Service Projects: School of the Week

2009-07-24T16:54:00.003-04:00

Saint Anselm College - Student volunteers had an interesting community service idea: recruit other schools in the area to raise money, through the Pennies for Peace program of the Central Asia Institute, to fund the building, supplying and maintenance of a school in Pakistan or Afghanistan. The Saint Anselm SIFE team brought the Pennies for Peace Program into 12 Greater Manchester schools, and each school raised money for the project. The team met their goal of raising over $10,000 to fund at least one new school. Saint Anselm College gave 12 other schools a great community service opportunity.

Visit truehero.org for more details, photos and video from this impressive community service project.

Community Service Project Video of the Month

2009-07-16T20:38:00.006-04:00

Mercy Vocational High School in Philadelphia took a video during their community service project to Biloxi, MS in 2009 and posted it on YouTube.

You can also view the video and the complete community service project description at truehero.org.

If you have any interesting ideas for videos of community service projects, please comment below.

Community Service Projects: School of the Week

2009-07-15T16:31:00.005-04:00

Cornell University - Student volunteer project is raising $$$ for solar powered laptop computers for a primary school in Kenya. See truehero.org for a complete description of community service projects.

Need Donation Ideas?

2009-07-14T08:31:00.008-04:00

Among the best charities to donate to are the schools participating in the True Hero competition. You donate for a cause that you believe in by selecting the student volunteer projects that are in your city or from the type of volunteer services that you believe are needed. A sample of students' projects include tutoring, mentoring, micro-lending, construction, providing computers to Africa, and teaching entrepreneurship to inner-city youth.

Visit truehero.org for a complete listing of student community service projects, including a detailed description of the project, location of the project, the number of people participating and served by the project, and the school contact information. You can donate directly to a school to support a specific project. Also, you can donate directly on the website to True Hero, Inc., a non-profit organization. Since corporate sponsors and trustee donations fund True Hero's overhead costs, 100% of your donation to True Hero, Inc. funds additional grant awards to more winning schools in the competition. Visit truehero.org for donation ideas.

Volunteer Projects

2009-07-12T22:42:00.010-04:00

We encourange you to post a comment and describe your volunteer projects, volunteer ideas, volunteer programs at your school, volunteer trips, including any volunteer work abroad, and your overall volunteer experience and advice to other students.

You can also post your community service project at truehero.org and be eligible to win a cash award in the competition that ends June 30, 2010.

Community Service Ideas

2009-07-12T22:22:00.009-04:00

We encourage you to post a comment and include your community service project ideas. You can also visit truehero.org and review community service projects that have been posted, along with their descriptions, photos and videos. You can also vote for your favorite service project in the current competition that ends June 30, 2010.